[Level: 11 - -> 17]
A sense of euphoria swept through my whole body, a feeling I have never felt before as the pain I was feeling before momentarily halted but resumed few seconds later.
I didn't feel much increase in strength when I last leveled up but this 6 level increase was definitely a noticeable change.
Now that I was able to move I could feel my bodily movement has become more fluid than before but it was not the time and place to test my strength.
Babel had introduced me as a rank 12 beast among his peoples and the fact that I was able to kill two demons alone nobody doubted his words.
A rank 12 beast was the same existence as gods among beasts, therefore they didn't dare look into my eyes, of course as long as I am here they won't cause trouble for babel thinking I have his back, but nevertheless royal family had many things to explain and apologize for.
After I have finished speaking, babel addressed his peoples asking for their forgiveness while explained his future plans for the kingdom.
He has decided to abandon the underground kingdom and live in open wilderness so that he and his people could evolve in true sense.
He has taken it upon himself to protect all the remaining beasts and that duty befall on him anyway as he was the strongest beast among all of them.
He has promised everyone higher ranked beast cores, so that they can evolve faster and add it to the strength of the pack.
He also relinquished the title of himself as king and decided to act as their guardian in order to repent for his family sins.
He striped his sister barita from the title of princess and gave her the duties befitting that of a laborer, lowest of the low.
I made her take an mana oath that she would act as shield in absence of babel and always think of his peoples before herself, and if she thinks about betraying babel ever again, she would die the most painful death one could imagine.
All beasts dispersed shortly after leaving only babel, barita and their mother who thanked me separately and I accepted their gratitude.
I motioned babel to follow me and we came to a secluded place where merlin wanted to tell him something, which was new information even for me.
The thing merlin said to him was to 'stop the other beasts from praying to any god, now and in future, not only them but even their descended'.
I understood his point that in this way they will reduce the influence of demon gods on this planet to some extent.
But his next words raised some doubts in my mind, 'if they ever feel the need to prey or need help they should request help from 'God merlin' imagining the symbol of majestic looking golden weighting scale from my previous world'.
The symbol dictated the ability of merlin which was equivalent exchange, but merlin declaring himself as god.
I explained babel what merlin told me and he agreed to my proposal without a hitch, he promised that he will prey everyday with other beasts and will implement this teaching on his future generations as well.
It was a good thing that he didn't ask me any question or I would have to explain him all demon god and celestial beings crap.
'So merlin, do you want to explain me when did you became god?' I asked hoping for an answer but merlin has not told me this information before meant he wants to keep it a secret.
'I will tell you in the future.' Merlin said.
"Let's go babel, it's about time you fulfill your promise." I said and babel nodded.
I had healed half of my wounds but still decided to ride on babel's head as we departed from the kingdom.
We left the ophidian kingdoms territory and climbed on a small mountain, above the surface of the mountain was a withered garden and an empty lake devoid of water clearly indicating someone has ravaged this place.
We descended toward the bottom of the lake and babel lead me toward an ordinary looking black stone lying in the corner of the lake, which had the scratching marks all over it but everything about it seemed normal.
[Poison breath]
Babel fired his poison breath at the stone and the stone lit up with some ancient runes.
"It wasn't supposed to open with my poison breath; I think father knew I would return to this place and made necessary arrangement beforehand." Babel said sobbing.
Few meters ahead of us earth moved and revealed an underground tunnel filled with water, I climbed on top of babel's head and he dived inside the dark tunnel navigating his way through water while I made fake holy sword light up for better view.
Few minutes later we saw the end of the tunnel, where a vacuum of air existed as we both came out of water all wet.
The place was nothing but heaven because lying everywhere were the high ranking beast cores as merlin showed me their ranks, apart from beast cores there were many artifacts as well as ancient books laid unused.
'The rank 12 beast core is not here.' Merlin said and I looked at babel.
"Babel, where is rank 12 beast core?" I asked him.
"It must be somewhere here; I couldn't think of any other place father would have hidden it." Babel said and jumped into the piles of beast core to search for the ancestor beast core.
"Let's go through everything here." I said going toward the end of the cave where most of the artifacts and literature books were laying.
I picked up a normal looking book and started to read it, in those dozen of books history of ophidian kingdom was recorded by previous kings.
After wasting my time looking through books I moved to the artifacts, they were mostly lower ranked artifacts retrieved after killing humans and demons.
I handed all the books to babel and stored artifacts in my inventory which babel didn't object, they were useless to him anyway.
"Lord you can take all the beasts core available here." Babel said and I didn't hesitate to empty the treasury.
There were total of 26,452 beast cores ranging from rank 4 to rank 8 beast cores, which was enough to fulfill our contract of supply of 1,000 beast cores for 2 years.
But after risking my life and fighting those two demons I was feeling that the compensation I have received from babel was lacking.
'The rank 12 beast core must be hidden here somewhere but if I want to find it I have to transform into my hybrid draconic form.' I thought because that way I will be able to sense mana more efficiently and my chances of discovering beast core would increase.
There were still 9 hours left before I could transform into my hybrid draconic form and thus I decided to absorb as many as beast core as I could.
I retrieved the bamel's rank 9 beast core and gave it to babel.
"It may be your brother's core but it also contains your father's essence you can absorb this core here with me." I said and babel's eyes shone with gratitude once again.
"Thank you my lord for your consideration." He thanked me but it was me who had to thank him for supplying 26,452 beast cores at once.
"Sit here and absorb the core, we won't find any better place than this." I said and babel nodded.
We both sat down in the opposite end of the cave so that we do not disturb each other as he gulped the rank 9 beast core in one go.
I decided to absorb 15,452 high ranking beast cores using [Soul eater] method leaving 11,000 beast cores for future use.